Alkitab Bible Study is another in a growing line of products based on the SWORD Project by
Crosswire Bible Society. It was created by KIYUT Software, a company located in Indonesia. The product has actually
been released into the public domain, though it is still being actively developed. This is the first package I have
ever reviewed that was in the public domain. That means you are “free to use this work in any way you wish.” Their
goal is to make life simpler with useful products. I have not been overly impressed with previous packages based on
SWORD; will Alkitab be any different?

By the way, “alkitab” is the Indonesian word for Christian Holy Bible.

Unfortunately, there are some flies in the ointment. Most Bible software programs show the verse text in a little balloon
(technically called a “tool tip”) when you hover over a verse reference, no matter where that reference is located (footnote,
commentary, etc.) This allows you to read the verse without having to actually change the focus of your main Bible passage.
Alkitab does not provide this useful feature that I could find. You actually have to click on a verse reference to see the
verse text. But this causes your entire Bible desktop to switch to the new passage. Luckily there is a Back button which will
put you back where you were. But the lack of this feature causes too much unnecessary jumping back-and-forth. (And I know the
author knows how to do it, because the feature does exist when you hover over a Strong’s number in the KJV.)

Another feature that is lacking is a lack of navigational help for general books. For instance, in reading G.K. Chesterton’s
Orthodoxy, there is no table of contents or other linked mechanism that would allow me to quickly jump through the book.
I have to actually go page by page. The table of contents is actually included, but only as one of the normal pages in the book.
It isn’t linked in any way. (I know it is possible, because Bible Desktop, a very similar Bible program also built on JSWORD, does
have a Table of Contents with linked chapters.)

There appears to be a small bug in Session Management, the feature that saves your desktop layout so that you can continue right
where you left off when you restart Alkitab. When starting Alkitab with Session Management turned on, the bottom pane, which
usually holds dictionaries and daily devotionals, appeared briefly and then disappears.

The last fly I found was the fact that the compare feature does not always work. For instance, the Bible pane would always revert
to a blank page if you tried to do any comparison involving the Restored New King James.

I also found an interesting note in the introduction to Easton’s Bible Dictionary: “Due to the nature of etext, the illustrated
portions of the Dictionary have not been included.” I hope that the program authors someday figure out how to embed illustrations
into their book texts, as it will enhance the product significantly.

Alkitab does have two nice features for obtaining new modules from the SWORD project site. The first is the Books Installer.
This reads raw zip modules from the SWORD project module site. You have to download the modules manually yourself, first.

The second is the Books Downloader, which connects to various sites containing SWORD modules, such as Crosswire.org, or
Bible.org. You can then download and install them automatically, which is very nice, though it does require a restart of
the program (see my reference above on Alkitab not saving its desktop when you shut it down). The Books Downloader is actually
an extra plug-in, which you can obtain and install as per the instructions on the web site.